


Me?

by fenellaevangela



Category: Space Cases (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Dubious Consent, Embarrassment, Future Fic, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/pseuds/fenellaevangela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After three years on the Christa Radu knows that he and Harlan are on better terms than when they first met, but then events unfold that reveal the deeper relationship he hadn't even noticed was developing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phidari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phidari/gifts).



> Catalina is in this and there’s no mention of Suzee, or the planet they were stuck on in season two. Roll with it ;-)

When Harlan exited the jump tube into the bunk room the lights came on automatically, a feature that was probably designed so that crewmembers, disoriented from the trip through the tubes, didn’t stumble in a dark room. As much as Radu appreciated the concern for their basic safety on a ship that they still only partly understood even after three years, the fact was that he _had_ been asleep and now was blinking blearily into the sudden brightness. He twisted around on his bunk to face the other man and could immediately tell that Harlan was upset.

“Harlan?”

Harlan looked up, seeming almost surprised that someone would have noticed him enter the room. Definitely distracted. “. . . Oh. Sorry, Radu. Christa, dim the lights?” 

The light immediately decreased to a soft glow, but Radu wasn’t about to go back to sleep. He and Harlan may have taken some time to warm to each other, but that animosity had blown over a long time ago and Radu liked to think that they were at least friends now – good friends, maybe – and he didn’t ignore it when his friends were upset.

“Hey,” he said, sitting up. “Are you all right?”

Harlan sighed. “Look, it’s nothing important. I didn’t mean to wake everyone up getting in so late – wait a minute.” He took in the room for the first time since arriving. “Are you the only one here? Where is everybody?”

Radu was really starting to get concerned. “Uh, Bova has watch tonight, remember?” Harlan had _made_ that month’s duty roster. 

Harlan rubbed the back of his neck, clearly flustered at having forgotten. “Oh yeah, of course. And the girls must be – right.”

“Yeah, um, Catalina and Rosie are . . . they found somewhere more private to bunk tonight.”

“Right,” repeated Harlan. “Well, sorry, man. I’ll just get ready and we can both go to sleep, how’s that sound?”

“Do you actually think you can fall asleep?” Radu asked. “Because I don’t think I can, not if I’m worried that something’s wrong with you. And I am.”

That confession made Harlan slump. Radu realized that even though Harlan’s bad mood had seemed obvious to him, the other man had actually been masking much of his emotions and now he had let that mask fall away. He walked over to the bunk next to Radu’s and sat down facing him. 

“I, uh, I got a message in the transmission we received from Earth earlier.”

They had been getting consolidated transmissions from the UPP on a fixed schedule ever since re-establishing contact three years previously. Radu rarely received any personal messages, but he knew that Harlan had a whole family waiting for him back on Earth and he got messages with almost every transmission. None of them had evoked a reaction quite like this, though. At least not that Radu had ever seen. 

“I know,” he admitted. “I saw the file this morning. That was hours ago, though – did something happen back home? If, uh, it’s okay for me to ask . . .”

There was a pause as Harlan frowned, and Radu felt his stomach clench. Maybe he _had_ stepped over a line, and Harlan was going to close off again and try to go to sleep with whatever was bothering him still festering. But then Harlan spoke again.

“Of course you can ask,” he said. “Hell, who else am I going to talk to about this? Goddard? _Davenport_? You’re probably the best friend I’ve got on this ship, Radu.”

Radu could feel his eyes widen. “Me?”

Harlan shrugged. “Who else?” 

“I don’t really know,” Radu said. “I just thought . . .”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

Stunned, Radu stood up from his bunk and moved to sit down next to Harlan instead. Neither man was prone to physical affection and even having lived in close quarters for three years the two had rarely found reason to touch each other outside of emergencies, but it felt right to Radu for him to sit close to Harlan now. He sat close enough that their sides were just brushing against each other. He counted it as the right choice when Harlan didn’t move away.

“I guess you’re my best friend, too,” he said.

Harlan scoffed, but it sounded half-hearted. “Oh, you _guess_?”

Radu bumped the other man’s shoulder slightly and after a moment Harlan returned the gesture, so he knew they were on the same page. They _were_ friends, just like Radu had hoped - _best_ friends.

He let that revelation sit for a moment before returning to the matter at hand. “So what’s going on?”

Harlan shook his head. “Nah, it wasn’t anything serious, it was just my stepdad being himself, as usual.”

“The admiral?” Radu asked. He knew the relationship between Harlan and his stepfather was sometimes tense, but since Harlan rarely spoke about the man in personal terms Radu didn’t know why.

“It’s really nothing,” Harlan insisted. “Just another lecture about how we’re running things out here – he didn’t like the report we sent in about that thing last month, you know, with the Aroikans?”

The Christa’s last encounter with the Aroikans, a spacefaring species they had first begun coming across only a few moths previously, had gone perfectly well as far as Radu knew. The Christa had agreed to ferry several Aroikans to a rendezvous point, and there hadn’t been any problems. They hadn’t even had to go off-course.

“What was his problem with it?” Radu asked.

Harlan threw his hands up in frustration. “Nothing. His problem was with me, my leadership. It’s been three years and he’s still second-guessing me.”

“Well, he is an admiral,” Radu suggested. “And he’s your family. He’s just worried about you. That’s what families do, right?”

Harlan looked over at him and Radu knew what was going through his head – how could Radu really judge what was normal for a family? The only family he had ever known were the eight people living on the Christa, and he hadn’t even realized that he was Harlan’s best friend. But Harlan moved his gaze back to the empty air in front of him without voicing any such thing. 

“Maybe it is because he’s my family,” Harlan said. “But that doesn’t make it feel any better that we’ve been out here for three years, facing things that no Star Dog has ever even heard of, and the admiral still thinks I’m that space case from the Star Academy who didn’t even qualify for his field test. And . . . and, I don’t know. Sometimes I think that maybe I am. Maybe it’s just a matter of time before I misjudge something and screw up big time.”

“Harlan, no.” Radu hesitated for a moment and then reached up to place his hand on Harlan’s shoulder. “You were never a space case, okay? You remember what you said the day we first saw the Christa, that we can do the job when it counts? Well, you were right. The admiral just reads reports – he doesn’t see you out here doing the job every single day. I do, and I -” Without even thinking, Radu squeezed Harlan’s shoulder. “I’d trust you with my life. I _have_. You aren’t going to screw up.”

Harlan took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling under Radu’s grip. He turned his head just enough to catch Radu’s eye. “Thanks, man, that means a lot.”

Radu shrugged. “No problem. It’s true.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Harlan said. The two men sat in silence for a moment before Harlan shifted on the bunk, dislodging Radu’s arm but moving so that they could face each other. This time when he spoke his voice was tinged with humour.

“So, that little speech of mine back at the academy when Davenport was trying to lecture us about our grades – you remember that three years later? After everything else that happened that day?”

Radu didn’t know why, but he was embarrassed by the question.

“I guess I do,” he said.

Harlan raised his eyebrows. “Huh. Interesting.”

Radu wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he simply shrugged and, after a moment, got back up and went to his bunk. Harlan followed suit, going over to his bunk and beginning to prepare for sleep. Once both men were in bed, Harlan deactivated the lights.

“Goodnight,” Harlan said.

Radu stared up at the darkened ceiling. “Goodnight.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains consent issues re: sex ~~pollen~~ venom!

The thing about travelling through uncharted territory in order to get home was that they had no idea what lay between the Christa and UPP space. Thelma had calculated it would take almost seven and a half years to reach the Star Academy, and although Davenport had made a point of recording their expected return date in the ship calendar no one aboard the Christa was under any illusions that the ship would arrive on time – not when even a simple scouting mission to gather vegetation samples from a new planet could result in a temporary crisis. And Radu had to admit that that seemed to happen a lot. Unfortunately, the Christa didn’t have the luxury of travelling back to UPP space uninterrupted; the stops were necessary. The limited food stores on board meant they needed to stock up on provisions periodically, and sometimes that required landing on unpopulated planets and hoping that if something there tried to kill them it would at least be quick about it so the Christa could get back on its way.

Radu was grateful, at least, that this particular scouting mission hadn’t put anyone’s life in immediate danger. The Christa was even back on its way again after only a few days’ delay, although they were on the lookout for another promising planet since the last one hadn’t yielded any edible vegetation. But it was hard to appreciate their relative luck when he’d been stuck in quarantine since returning to the ship.

“I really do feel fine,” he said.

“I know you do,” Rosie told him. She was clad in an environment suit as she entered the quarantine compartment. “Just one more blood test and you can get out of here, I promise.”

Radu sat patiently as Rosie took a vial of his blood and exited the compartment, shedding her protective gear before entering the medical bay proper. After encountering an unusual insect down on the planet Radu had initially felt woozy, but all the previous blood tests Rosie had run showed that, although the insect _had_ injected him with venom, that venom appeared to be inert. Everyone had agreed that a precautionary quarantine was a good idea, but after three days Radu was too healthy and too bored to stay any longer. Fortunately, the test seemed to agree.

Rosie beamed at him when she reappeared at the inner door separating the chamber from the rest of the medical bay. This time she wasn’t wearing any suit.

“See? What did I tell you?” she said, gesturing for him to follow her out. “The test found no change from yesterday or the day before. You have to promise to come back if you feel anything weird – anything at all – but it looks like the venom didn’t have any effects. Isn’t that great?”

Radu nodded. “Yeah.”

“I love it when things work out,” Rosie sighed. Radu simply nodded again, as he usually did when the Mercurian made offhanded cheery comments, and she continued a moment later. “Well, you’re free to go. I’ll see you later at dinner, right?”

“Sure. Thanks, Rosie.”

“No problem!” she said. 

Despite the lingering itch of frustration and boredom from being stuck in quarantine for three days, Radu found himself smiling as he headed to the bunk room. The scouting mission really could have gone a lot worse. Things felt good.

* * *

Things felt terrible.

A lot of unusual experiences had happened to Radu since he first stepped foot on the Christa, but nothing had ever made him feel quite like this. It was as if his blood was boiling under his skin; he was hot and itchy and _anxious_ , and he needed – something. A part of him knew that this had to have something to do with the alien bug bite but whatever was happening was too distracting for him to even think about trying to call Rosie or anyone else. He didn’t want to go back to the medical bay, anyway. He knew he wouldn’t get what he wanted there. He wanted, wanted . . . 

The lights in the bunk room, which had been off and Radu hadn’t even _noticed_ \- had he turned them off? Had he been sitting on his bunk, unmoving, long enough for the Christa to think he was asleep? - came on suddenly and Radu was hit with a flash of déjà vu. He looked over and it was Harlan, just like before. He felt his heart rate spike when he saw the other man, and all of a sudden the strange feeling crawling under his skin made sense. Radu knew what it was he wanted. Needed. _Harlan_.

“Hey man,” Harlan said. He walked over to Radu and leaned casually on the wall near his bunk; he hadn’t realized anything was wrong yet. Radu clenched and unclenched his fists. “Were you taking a nap? What, you didn’t get enough sleep the last couple of days? You almost missed dinner!”

“I’m not hungry,” Radu said, but something must have been wrong with his voice. The other man pushed off of the wall immediately.

“Hey, are you all right?”

Radu gritted his teeth as another surge of desire coursed through him.

“You should – go,” he said. The word felt like the hardest thing he had ever said. His body screamed at him not to let Harlan out of his sight. 

“No, I’m not leaving you like this,” Harlan insisted, and Radu’s heart soared despite himself. “I’ve got your back, okay?”

He leaned over and gripped Radu’s arms. Radu, forcing himself limp to prevent himself from reaching out and taking what he wanted, was too slow reacting to stop Harlan from pulling him to his feet.

“We’ve got to get you back to the medical bay,” said Harlan.

Radu groaned. Harlan was all around him now, overwhelming him with the smell of his body, the grip of his hands, their chests just touching. Radu could hear the other man’s heart beating. “No, please . . .”

“Radu, you’re sick. You need Rosie’s help.”

“I need your help,” insisted Radu. “Just you. Please, it needs to be you . . .”

“What needs to be me?” Harlan asked.

Radu moaned and, gripping Harlan’s elbows, he swayed forward to close the short distance between them. Harlan had to be able to feel his arousal, but even if he didn’t the just-there press of Radu’s lips to his made the message clear. He was holding himself back so much he felt physically pained, his blood felt like it was burning up, but he couldn’t – 

Harlan kissed him – softly, gently, not _enough_ \- then pulled away.

“I’m taking you to the medical bay, okay Radu? Hey,” he moved his grip to Radu’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’re going to fix this. You’re going to feel better, I promise.”

Radu believed him. Harlan was his best friend. Harlan would take care of him.


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out that being confined to quarantine was a lot less boring when you had actual cause to be there. Radu couldn’t even keep track of his time there at first, still preoccupied by the relentless thrum of his body yearning to be touched. Nothing he did gave him any relief; he only came back to himself after Rosie discovered an appropriate counteragent, and by then Radu was so exhausted that he slept, he later found out, for almost twelve hours. Once it was clear that he could control himself again and that none of the effects appeared to be communicable, Rosie let him spend the rest of his time under observation in one of the regular medical bunks. It was only then that he really had time to think.

All he could think about was Harlan.

The other man had kissed him not once, but twice; Radu could remember that much. Harlan had stopped them in the hallway outside the medical bay as Radu had begged to be touched, to be fucked – Radu was mortified by some of the things he said, and he knew he didn’t remember the half of it - and Harlan kissed him for the second time. It was slow but in a way that Radu’s fevered body could appreciate, measured and intentful like Harlan really meant to continue. But he hadn’t, of course, because Radu wasn’t in his right mind. It had only been a stopgap to help Radu cope, and he knew that, but in the moment it had been the best feeling in the world and Radu wondered . . . 

Staring up at the ceiling of the medical bay, he sighed. He didn’t know what it was he wanted. Just to know what Harlan had been thinking, he supposed, but the idea of asking the other man about what had happened made Radu cringe. As curious as he was, he thought that maybe it would be easier if he never mentioned it at all, pretend that he had forgotten the whole thing. Was there even a way to have that conversation without it being excruciatingly awkward? What if he asked about the kiss and their friendship suffered for it? The question turned over and over in Radu’s mind during his recovery, and the dilemma only felt more acute with Harlan’s absence.

Harlan didn’t visit Radu for the entire time that the Andromedan was in the medical bay.

Radu wasn’t short of company, though – Rosie, as their de facto medical officer and the one in charge of observing him, spent several hours in the medical bay each day, and the rest of the crew all made a point to drop in occasionally during the week following Radu’s release from his second stint in quarantine. Even Thelma had stopped by, although she had spent most of the visit earnestly asking questions about how the venom had effected Radu’s physiological reactions - intently curious about biological existence ever since her brief experience with it - and Radu had had to cut the conversation short. But despite having regular company, Harlan’s non-appearance felt like a damning sign to Radu, and when Rosie eventually gave him an absolutely-certain-this-time clean bill of health he left the medical bay determined to fix his relationship with Harlan. He just needed some advice first.

* * *

Radu found Catalina in a secondary science lab, one of the many places that the crew used for private pursuits when the common areas of the ship wouldn’t do. She was clicking through something on one of the computer terminals and at first Radu was wary of interrupting her, but she broke into a smile as soon as she saw him.

“Radu!” she exclaimed, almost as bubbly as her girlfriend. “You’re out! You’re all better?”

Radu nodded, smirking. “Uh, that’s what Rosie says, yeah. She’s pretty sure this time.”

“Oh, ha ha,” said Catalina, rolling her eyes. 

“Ah, I’m just kidding,” Radu said. He crossed the room and sat at the computer terminal next to Catalina. “I was actually hoping to ask you something about Rosie. Well, you and Rosie. If that’s okay.”

Catalina’s eyes widened slightly. “Well, sure, I guess. What do you want to know?”

Radu wasn’t quite sure how to ask about what he wanted to know without telling her everything, so he went with the most straightforward approach. 

“How did you and Rosie realize the other was interested? I mean . . . how did you know it wasn’t just you?”

Catalina perked up in her seat and Radu groaned, knowing she had immediately understood why he was asking her and was far too excited about the fact. He had never been particularly good at subterfuge. Just as he suspected, she began teasing him without missing a beat. 

“Oh! Radu, do you a _crush_?” Catalina asked. She leaned in across the space between them.

“C’mon, Catalina, we’re not kids anymore!”

“Well, ruin all my fun, why don’t you?” said Catalina, with a pronounced – and clearly affected - pout. She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. “You _are_ interested in someone, though, right? No, you don’t need to tell me.”

That surprised Radu. “Oh. Thank you.”

“Uh, you don’t have to tell me because it’s clear that you do,” Catalina pointed out. “And I’ll be a good friend and not ask who, although we both know the options are limited.”

Radu sighed. “Well, thanks anyway.”

Catalina smiled. “You’re welcome. And to answer your question, I didn’t know for sure. But I was pretty sure Rosie was flirting with me, so I flirted back, and when the moment felt right I kissed her. She kissed me back.”

Although Catalina shrugged as if her answer was a simple and obvious one, Radu couldn’t help but feel disappointed. He didn’t think her and Rosie’s story could apply to his relationship with Harlan; Harlan had already kissed him – had kissed him _back_ after Radu kissed him first – but all of that had happened while Radu was burning up with alien bug venom. Radu could just imagine trying to flirt with Harlan now and having the other man worry it was just a resurgence of the venom’s effects. If he was going to find out if Harlan was interested in him, Radu was going to have to be direct. He just had to find the right moment.


	4. Chapter 4

The Christa had thrown them a few curveballs during their time aboard and, to be fair, Radu had to admit that this was one of the more mundane ones.

Secondary systems on the Christa had stopped working earlier in the day without any warning. Although life support and the artificial gravity both seemed fine, as far as Radu could tell without access to the engine room or the bridge, the jump tubes weren’t working, the doors were unresponsive, and only the emergency lights were on. Most annoyingly, the comms were down so the crew couldn’t even communicate in order to coordinate repair efforts.

And Radu was stuck in the bunk room with Harlan.

“Are you sure you can’t just . . . pull the door open?” Harlan asked, for the second time.

Radu shrugged. “I mean, I could try again? But if it didn’t work the first time I don’t know what to tell you. It must have gotten jammed when the power surged.”

Harlan let himself fall back onto the bunk where he was sitting – not his bunk, but the one next to Radu. Radu could make out the profile of his face as he stared up at the ceiling.

“It’s just so frustrating being stuck in here,” Harlan said. "We don’t even know where everyone else is. Is anyone working to fix this? Is anyone hurt?”

“I know, Harlan. I’m here too.”

Sighing, Harlan turned over on his side to face Radu. “Sorry man, I didn’t mean it like that. I feel responsible for everyone, though, you know? And here I am, locked in my bedroom while there could be an emergency going on.”

“It’s probably not that serious,” Radu assured him. “But I understand if you don’t want to be stuck here.”

“I just wish we could be somewhere we could do some _good_ ,” said Harlan. “Like, why couldn’t this happen while I was on the bridge? At least then I’d have a _chance_ of doing something.”

Radu bit his lip. Was it a bad idea, to bring this up when there was nowhere for Harlan to go? Or himself? It had been almost a month since his discussion with Catalina and Radu still hadn’t broached the topic of their kisses with Harlan. After all that time waiting for the right moment, Radu now wondered if getting locked together in the bunk room might be a sign.

“Actually,” he said, biting the bullet. “I meant, I understand if you don’t want to be stuck here with _me_.”

Harlan pushed himself up, resting on his elbow to get a better look at the other man. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Radu sighed. “You know what I mean. The last time we were alone together it didn’t go well.”

“What? Radu, that wasn’t your fault!” Harlan sat up all the way, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. “Do you think I’m worried that you’ll act like that again? Because that wasn’t you. I know that wasn’t you.”

“Well, you haven’t said anything to me about it,” Radu pointed out. “I don’t remember everything that happened while I was effected by the venom, but from what I do remember . . . I’d understand if you weren’t as comfortable around me as you were before.”

Even in the dim light Radu could make out a surprised look on the other man’s face.

“You don’t remember?” Harlan asked.

Radu shook his head. “A bit, but not much.”

Harlan let out a soft chuckle. “All this time I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it, pretend like I didn’t say anything. And you don’t even remember!”

“What _you_ said?” asked Radu, frowning slightly.

“Yeah, me,” said Harlan. He got up and stood in front of Radu, a shadow obscuring his face as Radu looked up at him. “When you got real bad I couldn’t help wondering to myself, why did it have to be me? I told you we were going to Rosie, but you said -”

Radu gulped. “I said – ‘Just you. It needs to be you.’”

“Yeah,” said Harlan. “So I wondered, why me? And so I asked you.”

Radu was shocked. “You . . .? I don’t remember that.”

“Do you remember what happened next?” Harlan asked. When Radu shook his head in response, he continued. “You said that stupid bug had opened your eyes, that you had wanted me for a long time.”

Harlan was still standing over Radu as he spoke, and it was hard to see his face in the emergency lighting. Radu hoped the same could be said for Harlan’s view of himself, because he felt his face flush hard at the other man’s words.

“I . . . said that. I’m sorry, Harlan, I -”

Harlan held up a hand. “Just let me finish. Don’t you want to know what I said back to you?”

He did. He didn’t. He did. “Yes.”

“I said, if you can tell me you still feel that way once you’re better, we could do something about it.”

Radu could feel his heart racing. “Yeah?”

Harlan nodded. “Yeah. So?”

“So, I _do_ , Harlan, I -”

Before Radu could finish his sentence, Harlan crowded into the little space that was left between the two men and leaned down, gripping at the sides of Radu’s face. Radu reached up to meet him and when they kissed this time the angle was little off, and the heat from the venom wasn’t there, but it was perfect anyway.


End file.
